


hard to translate

by sugarcubeshiro



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Autistic Keith (Voltron), Body Hair, Daddy Kink, Dirty Talk, Fluff, M/M, POV Shiro (Voltron), Porn with Feelings, authority kink, back at it again with thinking about shiro's feelings and stuff about sex and things, it's not directly stated but that's also just regular ol' canon keith to me y'know. so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 00:20:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16754260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sugarcubeshiro/pseuds/sugarcubeshiro
Summary: He supposes that Keith being overly enthusiastic could be expected, since everything they do for the first time together is thefirst timefor Keith. Yet Shiro often catches himself being the one fucked stunned into the mattress, gasping for breath and staring up at the ceiling with his left arm feeling boneless where it’s resting flung over his head on the pillow. All while Shiro wonders how the hell he’s supposed to be able to recover, both emotionally and sometimes physically, from the wonder of what just happened.~or, 'sleeping with someone you love and trust is weird: the fic'.





	hard to translate

Shiro wasn’t a stranger to sex before he got lost in space, before he found his way back home with the boy he’d left back there—finding himself having fallen for said boy—but he’s never felt as casually free and curious as he does when he’s with Keith.

He supposes that Keith being overly enthusiastic could be expected, since everything they do for the first time together is the  _first time_ for Keith. Yet Shiro often catches himself being the one fucked stunned into the mattress, gasping for breath and staring up at the ceiling with his left arm feeling boneless where it’s resting flung over his head on the pillow. All while Shiro wonders how the hell he’s supposed to be able to recover, both emotionally and sometimes physically, from the wonder of what just happened.

Not that Keith doesn’t match him in his blissed-out daze. But it’s still a little overwhelming just  _how_  overwhelming it can be, and if anything, the fact that they both seem to feel it only adds to that.

Shiro never really thought he could have this. Not just have it  _again_ , he didn’t think he could have it at all, ever—didn’t know it could be like this for anyone. He cut himself off from dreaming of a future beyond his 30th birthday at such a young age, kept everything a black void of off-limits for himself, except for the thought of the wide-open sky and the call of space where there would be nothing to stop him. 

He definitely didn't let himself imagine sharing his life with someone else. Not until Adam gently elbowed his way into Shiro’s heart in their late teens, becoming his exception. Only for that to end with Adam squashing Shiro’s tentatively cracked belief of  _oh maybe I could have this after all_  under his boot, weighing heavy with disappointment over all of Shiro's shortcomings.

It’s not like Adam was the first person to do that to him. Shiro was more or less used to it, by that point.

That didn’t make it hurt any less, though.

Which is why, even if Shiro  _had_ let his younger self be free with his hopes and what he wished for—what he wanted when it came to loving someone, and being loved in return—Shiro can't see himself having imagined something like this.

Someone like Keith.

The scope of Shiro’s feelings, the certainty with which he feels them, is too mind-boggling to be something a person could dream up. Everything about loving Keith is such a given, Shiro’s biggest  _of course_ , yet being loved back by him is so surreal that Shiro can’t wrap his head around it at times. Maybe he should be scared of how sure he feels about Keith; about them and what they have and what they are, but how easy it all is, is also what makes Shiro unable to fear it.

With Keith, he forgets to be terrified.

If it was with someone else, anyone else doing this to him, maybe Shiro could let himself wonder if it’s all because of being in a new body. If maybe it’s just the aftereffects of being brought back from death and getting so many second chances. Maybe something within him went weird on the way, somewhere, through all the journeys Shiro’s essence has taken before settling back into this body. Back when he mixed his mind with the man who-was-him-but-wasn’t, and doing something like that has now left Shiro unsteady and shaken up for the rest of eternity.

Maybe the ways in which he’s latched onto Keith, how Shiro loves him in ways he didn’t think a person could, is from facing reality after being so sure for so long that he would never be able to see another person in real life again, or even hold a conversation with someone. Because no matter how much Shiro would like to say that he never gave up hope, it was so hard not to resign himself to the fact that he might be stuck in the in-between of the Black Lion’s consciousness forever, since his physical form was already gone.

Coming back left him disoriented for months, and Keith was his one constant, his connection, his calming point. The one person always there. Supportive and loving but never pitying or condescending—always helpful and protective but never overbearing. It was Keith who saved him, who kept Shiro grounded when everything else was shaking. How could Shiro be expected to ever be able to look at Keith again now and _not_ go weak, even if the worst of the tremors have passed?

He wouldn’t even be alive if he didn't love Keith the way he does.

Maybe everything that’s happened to Shiro, and to them and what they’ve gone through together, does have some part in being the reason why falling in love and falling into bed with someone new has been overwhelming in ways that Shiro’s never felt before. Technically the body he’s in now experienced being touched in a certain way for the first time when Keith did too.

But... mostly Shiro thinks all of this is just because it’s _Keith_. If it was with anyone else, it wouldn’t feel like this anyway. Shiro knows it. Whether he’s been brought back from the dead or not.

Shiro doesn’t like to compare Keith to Adam—he doesn’t want to drag out the ghost of his ex just to point out where he found Adam lacking in comparison to the man he loves now. But the fact is that Shiro was in a committed relationship for years.

He  _knows_  sex.

Or at least he thought he did.

Shiro thought he knew what it’s supposed to do to your body, with your mind, how vulnerable and open and loved it can leave you feeling.

Sex with Adam was great and sweet and hot. Sometimes adventurous and fun and mind-blowing, and overall the best thing Shiro could’ve imagined back then. It really was all of that, and still—what he has now manages to feel so different.

Like Shiro really had no clue, after all, no matter how fond his memories will always be.

But if being with Adam was the first time out of the simulator and flying a real ship—something he’ll keep with him for the rest of his life—then Keith is his Black Lion in comparison. Zapping him through the stars in unknown space, taking Shiro places he never even thought he could go, and dimming everything that came before it.

With Keith, Shiro is hungry and insatiable, curious and selfish, playful and loving and sometimes too emotional to know what to do with himself. He wants to try everything with Keith. Even the things he never thought he’d be into, just because Keith’s the one bringing it up.

So maybe it’s not because of something as profound as being brought back to life.

Maybe it’s simply part of the uncharted territory of letting himself be happy—really happy—for once. Allowing himself to remember, every now and then, that he’s only in his mid-twenties. Shiro’s no longer fighting his own body for how long he’ll be able to use it in all the ways he wants to. Maybe, even with nightmares and the tight metal cage still clamping around the breath in Shiro’s lungs when unexpected memories flash before his eyes—from bloody fights and the feeling of dragging his hand down the cold, unchanging walls of a dark prison cell—being with Keith just makes him  _happy_.

And maybe happiness makes him carefree and dumb, sometimes, for the first time in his life, instead of just reckless and dumb. Maybe _that_  is the real difference between who he used to be and who Shiro is now.

Because the best thing about sex with Keith is how even when it’s not perfect, even when it ends up awkward or should-be-weird, it never feels wrong. It’s not a performance. So many situations around Keith, Shiro finds himself relaxed in ways he’s never known how to be before— _because_   _it’s_ _not a performance_ , being with Keith.

It’s just the two of them, and they love each other.

Even in bed, if something doesn’t work out for either of them, it’s fine to laugh it off.

They tried it.

It doesn’t have to be more to it than that.

Shiro can tug off the cat ears placed on top of his own head that were part of a cheap Galra costume they purchased after Shiro first saw Keith eyeing it a little too long in a probably-supposed-to-be-a-souvenir-shop set up down by the market, when a blushing Keith mumbles, “ _Yeah, no, actually, I, uh—I think I changed my mind, Shiro_.”

Shiro can toss the ears across the room and still get on his hands and knees for Keith on the bed, while he looks over his shoulder and arches his back in a way that’s purely for show. And Keith still scrambles to join him, eager hands clutching Shiro's hips before Keith thrusts inside him with a drawn-out groan, the sound of it leaving Shiro whimpering as much as having Keith's hard cock buried deep in his ass. Shiro can push back until Keith starts fucking into him properly, again and again. Until any of their lingering choked-off laughter is replaced with desperate moans in tune to the steady rhythm of the headboard hitting the wall and Shiro's gasped, “ _So good, so good, always so fucking good to me, baby boy_.”

Trying new things with Keith is never so embarrassing that Shiro feels like he can't handle it. Because even when it's not perfect, even when it does end up awkward and should-be-weird, if it’s with Keith, it always turns out that nothing could be more perfect, after all.

It’s them.

They’re in love.

Shiro likes everything about Keith because it’s Keith, and because of it, he also likes everything that  _Keith_  likes.

The sentiment seems to go both ways, which Shiro is grateful for. 

Keith indulges him and rides Shiro on the couch with his hands tied behind his back while wearing nothing but knee-high football socks, biting down on his bottom lip with flushed cheeks as he looks at Shiro. Adding something of his own that he wants, Keith leans in and whispers, “ _Daddy... harder,_ ” as he pants against Shiro’s mouth while moving up and down on his cock, leaving Shiro choking on air.

Keith lies pliant and willing on his back for him, ass at the edge of the bed while Shiro stands there with Keith's calves resting on his shoulders. Clutching Keith’s thighs so tightly that he leaves marks, Shiro fucks him while they’re both naked except for the 10-hole black leather combat boots on Keith's feet. Shiro bites down on Keith's shin and Keith whines, his fingers twisting in the sheets with the unmistakable push and pull of pleasure through his body. Clearly loving it too, even though Shiro knows that his boyfriend still doesn’t really get Shiro’s fascination with playing dress-up with his legs.

In turn, Shiro goes along with trying out the equal parts impressively creative and specific-to-the-point-of-being-giggle-inducing roleplay scenarios that Keith comes up with. Even if the first time they tried it, Shiro had been so stilted at the start that he was convinced he’d managed to completely ruin the whole experience for the rest of eternity for Keith. While Shiro wanted it but lacked the confidence to be sure about it, he’d been coaxed through all of it by Keith’s moans and encouragements, and the undeniable fact how hard Keith still was. Even after Shiro blushed beet red when he told Keith that, sure—Shiro would help him, if Keith did something for  _him_  first. It was all followed by the sound of the zipper of Shiro’s pants getting pulled down, belonging to the three-piece suit Keith had wanted him to wear.

It’s not like Shiro’s embarrassment magically disappeared just because Keith dropped to his knees and mouthed over the bulge in Shiro’s pants. But just like Keith laughing a little self-consciously while putting on thigh-highs for Shiro, only to end up desperately spreading his legs further for him, Shiro gasped with want and buried his fingers in Keith’s hair to show him how much it was doing it for him, too.

Settling into his role as he sighed out the, “ _That’s it, sweetheart, just like that,_ ” Shiro looked down while Keith worked the belt open to tug Shiro’s pants down. His hands slid back to grip Shiro’s bare ass, before Keith took the whole length of him into his mouth, moaning around Shiro like  _Keith_  was the one being done a favor by experiencing the privilege of choking on Shiro's cock. It wasn't all that difficult for Shiro to lose himself in it after that—wasn’t a lot of acting skills required on Shiro’s part to roughly fuck Keith's mouth while telling him to take it like a good boy, like the good boy Shiro already knows Keith can be. Not when Keith looked up at him through wet lashes and  _whimpered_ _,_  all pretty and needy with his mouth stuffed with cock.

Sometimes, despite the happiness, Shiro still catches himself wondering if he should be worried instead, his brain unable to stop overthinking any good parts of his life.

His skidding mind flashing to memories of having his boyfriend laid out over his lap, roughly slapping Keith’s ass while telling him,  _“Stop being so fucking impatient, a whore would be more composed._ _”_  All while Keith squirms and mouths back to push Shiro’s buttons on purpose, to make Shiro hit him again, and harder next time. Something calming and soothing always settles inside of Shiro as he complies—at the feeling of utter control, and the depth of Keith’s trust in him when he both wants and allows Shiro to keep going. When Shiro uses his own strength to turn his baby into a sobbing, moaning mess under his hands, until Keith’s begging his Daddy to, “ _please put it in, please, please, please—need you, I need you, Daddy—Daddy,_ Daddy _—”_  while writhing on Shiro’s thighs, and fucking Keith is the only thing Shiro can do to keep himself from falling apart from it all.

Moments inbetween and afterwards, Shiro sometimes sits and quietly panics while asking himself if some of this is the two of them chasing after some sort of high. Maybe they’ve been too desensitized to everything around them by everything they’ve seen and gone through in life. Maybe they’ve been messed up to the point of being numbed to real feelings, to casual happiness, and what Shiro does with Keith in bed isn’t out of overwhelming love and trust and having  _fun,_ but instead something to make them feel alive.

But just because Shiro wouldn’t have thought of himself as a particularly kinky person before Keith, it's not as if this is all there is between them. What they have can hardly be boiled down to nothing but some crazy ‘sexually compatible’ match-made-in-heaven. That thought itself is laughable for how absurd it is.

Shiro loved Keith in ways he didn’t understand long before he found himself naked beneath him. And sex is just as good when it’s simply them, in bed, looking into each other’s eyes while they fuck slow and lazy. It’s just as good when they end up laughing at either of them making an awkward shift, or a muscle stretches in a way that’s too straining. Shiro never feels more alive than when Keith flings Shiro’s legs into the crook of his arms and fucks him deep and sweet instead of hard and fast—when all Shiro can do is gasp, and try to find the words to tell Keith how much he loves him, how perfect he is, how good it feels to be with him. How Keith makes Shiro remember that he still has a heart in there somewhere in his chest, and its only purpose was never meant to be to just hurt Shiro.

Happiness comes back to Shiro fully, stripped naked and without the weight of the world on his shoulders, when they’re panting into each other's mouths but end up stopping the movement of their hips because kissing is just that good, and they need to take a moment for it. Grabbing each other’s faces while moaning, biting, licking their tongues past each other’s lips in a desperate attempt to get as close as they can be—kissing each other like the only way to exist is with the other’s breath in their lungs.

Tonight, in the afterglow of what Shiro’s sappy heart would call  _making love_ , Keith smiles wide and smug as he props himself up on an elbow and looks down at Shiro, clearly pleased with himself.

Yesterday Keith had called him ‘ _Sir_ ’ outside of the battlefield. While straddled naked across Shiro’s lap in the chair in Shiro’s office, begging the Captain of the ATLAS to let Keith be part of his crew. Proving just what a valuable asset and dedicated employee he would be by bouncing on Shiro’s cock, while digging his nails into Shiro’s still-clothed chest for purchase. Keith’s broken voice begging, “ _Please, Sir, please_ ,  _I'll—I’ll be good, I’ll be good, I'll be—_ so _fucking good for you, Sir, I—_ ah _, I promise, Captain, I'll do anything, anything you want if you just let me—”_

(As if Shiro doesn't already know that Keith is the best there is.)

(As if there is any reality where Shiro _wouldn’t_ give him the world, without Keith first sinking his ass down on Shiro’s big cock.)

—until Shiro had to clamp a hard palm over Keith’s mouth, and squeeze his own eyes shut. Not even sure himself whether he was mortified by the thought of someone hearing them, or just knowing that he would come in two seconds if he had to keep listening to Keith telling him how much he wanted Shiro. Either way, Shiro had ended up throwing Keith onto his back on Shiro’s desk to finish what they’d started. After gripping Keith’s hair to yank his head back, Shiro had leaned over Keith’s body and murmured hotly in his ear how good it felt to fuck his favorite cadet’s tight little ass as he thrust deep inside Keith. It’s a good thing Shiro kept the hand not in Keith’s hair firmly in place over Keith’s mouth, given how loud Keith cried out against Shiro’s palm while the heels of Keith's feet dug in low at Shiro’s back, urging him on even before Shiro started really giving it to him again.

And then this evening, they instead undressed each other quietly and carefully in the dim, blue glow of Shiro’s bedroom on the ATLAS. Together they sunk back against the sheets, touching each other until they lost track of time. Lazily chasing after something they had no urgency to reach, with soft skidding fingertips feeling against skin, lips mouthing over spots where the other’s pulse beats.

Because between and through everything they do, everything that’s silly and dirty and fun—the desperate and filthy and turned-into-best-fuck-they’ve-had-so-far—being with Keith is also always this.

Always mostly  _this_ : the two of them touching each other like it's the most important thing they'll ever do. As if sliding his hands across Shiro's body is the most significant task that Keith has ever been given. Like saving the universe from doom has nothing against the feel of skin on skin, or the sweet sighs against their lips between kisses, or exploring all the different ways they can show how much they love each other.

Maybe this is just what the kind of love that Shiro never let himself imagine before he had Keith was always meant to be about.

Maybe this was always what true love would be like.

Complicated and twisting both Shiro’s gut and his mind into something he can’t wrap his head around, and so easy to accept that none of it makes any sense.

All of that, all at once, somehow.

Maybe love really is as deep and scary and out of reach as Shiro had always feared. But maybe it’s also something as simple as not being afraid of seeming ridiculous. Not being afraid of looking silly. Not being afraid to trust the person that you love, and trusting them enough that you can tell them what you want, and to have _them_ trust you enough to share all of themselves with you, too.

And maybe all of those things really were possible for Shiro to have, after all.

With Adam, Shiro got almost four years that he will always remember. The two of them shared something special enough for Adam’s death to forever stay a sharp, painful stab close to his sternum, whenever Shiro thinks of him. A part of Shiro will always care for who Adam used to be to him, back then, but Shiro also knows that things could never have worked out between them. Not when there was still so much of himself that Shiro held back, and how he subconsciously had always accepted losing Adam’s love as an inevitability.

In the end, Adam’s final ultimatum before Kerberos only served as proof of something Shiro had always been expecting. Looking back at what had hurt so badly, ha made Shiro so bitter that he refused to spare the man he once planned to share a life with even a single thought for years, he knows that when it came down to it, they had both done what was right for themselves. Even if they went about it in the wrong ways and hurt each other so badly.

For all that Shiro wishes that they could have had the chance to meet now—or at the very least have it be an option to do so—Shiro doesn’t know what it would’ve been like. If they could have even been friends, after everything. He likes to think so, hope so, but Shiro also knows by now that he couldn’t love anyone wholeheartedly in the ways that Adam wanted him to—in the ways that Shiro desperately wanted himself to be able to, as well—back when he was supposed to. 

Even if Shiro did his best at the time.

Shiro might have hated Adam for how it ended, but throughout their relationship, Adam wasn’t the only one being unfair.

It’s not like it’s going to do Adam any good, but at least Shiro knows better now.

Maybe loving someone who wasn't right for him, and who Shiro wasn't right for, should have made him careful and cautious of looking too far ahead, now. But instead, Shiro just feels certain. He plans on loving Keith for a long time, fully and wholly, and Shiro knows just how much his heart means it this time. As long as Keith will have him, Shiro will love him. As long as Shiro lives, and even after that.

He knows for a fact that he still loves Keith in the astral plane.

Because Keith's always been the family that Shiro never got to have until he met him, and it’s not through anything forcing them together. So often it’s been the exact opposite, the universe and life itself trying to wedge their way between them enough times by now that at this point it feels like they’re being specifically targeted. Still, again and again, they have both planted their feet firmly on the ground and said, _no_ —you won't take this from me.

Keith is his forever because they choose to love each other through their worst parts, when people around them have turned away from both of them even on their best days. Keith will be with him always, because where others have let Shiro go at the slightest hint of trouble—despite Shiro’s assurances that he will clean up the mess he leaves behind simply from existing—Keith draws his blade and stares death itself in the eye where it's holding Shiro by the throat, and hisses, “ _You can't have him_ ,” before proving just how much he means it.

How could Shiro care about covering up his flaws, or storing away his demons around Keith, when Keith’s answer to seeing any of them is always to kick them square in the face so hard it breaks jaws?

With Keith, Shiro can be embarrassing like it doesn't matter to be perfect, because it  _doesn't_  matter if he's perfect. With Keith, Shiro can talk about his fears and failures, and afterwards they will laugh or hug until the tears disappear, or lie quiet while leaning into each other’s space, holding hands, fingers playing while Shiro lets his emotions settle and just _be_. With Keith, admitting to being scared or vulnerable isn't some track that Shiro feels the need to cover up, but instead it’s a secret path that he wants to share. Keith always looks at whatever dark road Shiro leads him to, and all he does is wonder where it goes. And as long as it’s what Shiro wants to, Keith always takes Shiro’s hand in his own to head down there with him—instead of trying to tug Shiro away, in case what they find will hurt either of them.

The difference between Keith and everyone else, is that Shiro doesn't want to be perfect _for_ him. With Keith, Shiro wants to find out how to be the best person that he can be with all of the parts of himself that are real, instead of presenting something beautiful he’s pieced together for show while praying that the people watching will like it. Like maybe Shiro can be enough and good, just as he is, even when he lets himself be fully human and flawed.

Keith is Shiro’s everything because Keith’s his best friend, and Keith is the one person who has seen all of Shiro and stayed, and Shiro will be his forever now. And where that thought would have made Shiro want to run away and hide before, now, with Keith, all Shiro feels is comforted, and loved, and safe and secure.

“Hey…” Keith’s whispered voice cuts through the silence between them, startling Shiro out of his thoughts and back to the present. Gentle fingers card through Shiro's hair, and Shiro looks up at Keith where he’s still propped up on his elbow next to him in Shiro's bed. Still in the dim blue glow of his bedroom, still in the afterglow of Shiro’s too-soft heart thinking  _making love_ , and with Keith still smiling down at him. Keith whispers, “Care to share what you're thinking about so hard you spaced out on me?”

_Oh, nothing_ , Shiro thinks of saying. _Just waxing poetically to myself about the true depth of my feelings for you, since you let me spank your ass red while whimpering and begging Daddy for more_.

He barely holds back a snort at it all, despite how flustered he feels too. But past a certain point, Shiro's life really did get so absurdly different from anything he could've imagined while younger.

“Just, uh—drifted off for a while.” Shiro clears his throat, then hums as he turns to rub his cheek against the pillow to hide his blush. He peeks up at Keith again, and with him, Shiro has learned that true love is this: to cuddle, quiet and content with the silence, and soft kisses as they drift off to sleep. But also, watching the love of your life smirking down at you with something twinkling in his eyes, while he clearly tries to read your mind. Shiro adds, “Silly post-orgasm stuff.”

Keith pulls a face at that, hise nose scrunching up. “Don’t use the word ‘orgasm’, Shiro.”

“What?” Shiro laughs. “I can’t say _orgasm_ , Keith?”

“You’re lucky I know that you’re a lot hotter when you’re actually turned on,” Keith mutters and taps his pointer finger against Shiro’s lips. “Or I’d never try to get you to use that mouth of yours to talk dirty again.”

“Well, we can’t have that,” Shiro murmurs against his fingertip and presses a kiss to it, because he does love it when Keith tries to rile him up. Keith pulls his hand back to stroke it through the newly-buzzed hair of Shiro’s undercut above his ear instead, and Shiro’s own smirk turns flirty over Keith’s continued playful expression. “What are  _you_  thinking about, baby?”

Keith smooths a careful thumb over one of Shiro’s eyebrows, before he leans down to press a kiss to the sharp shape of the countless small, grey-white strands of hair there.

“About how much I love your hair,” Keith murmurs, and Shiro blinks up at him in surprise.

“My hair?” Shiro slides his hand up the bend of Keith’s back and chuckles. Not because what Keith told him is particularly funny, but mostly because being around Keith makes happiness bloom in Shiro’s chest, unrestrained and constantly on display on his face whenever he has Keith near.

“Yeah,” Keith says. He leans back, just as amused, before he bends down again to kiss Shiro’s other brow.

“It’s been through a lot,” Shiro murmurs.

“Mhm. And like I said, I love it.” Keith catches his eye when he pulls away, and then he starts to move down Shiro’s body, looking back up at him through his own jet-black bangs hanging across his forehead.

It’s instinct for Shiro to reach out with his prosthetic hand and smooth it away from Keith’s face, and Keith leans into the touch for a moment before he flicks his gaze to Shiro’s chest. Keith leans down to press a kiss to the still-dark patch of hair between Shiro’s pecs, and Shiro hums in approval when Keith grazes his teeth over the skin.

Propping himself up on his left elbow, Shiro watches as Keith makes his way further down, placing open-mouthed kisses down Shiro’s abs before his hands grip Shiro’s hips. Keith’s tugs on his hold determinedly, until Shiro stretches out properly, flopping back down against the mattress while Keith continues to kiss his way down his stomach and then licks a line up the trail of hair above Shiro’s crotch to the dip of his navel.

“Keith...” Shiro sighs, his hand still stroking through Keith’s bangs.

“Mm?” Keith hums absentmindedly in reply, seeming content with focusing on sucking a mark into Shiro’s skin close to his right hipbone, working the spot over until he finally pulls away with a small gasp. “It’s just—” Keith closes his eyes and groans, his short nails scratching down Shiro’s happy trail before Keith sighs. He nuzzles his cheek against the hair and closes his eyes, like he’s sinking into a warm bed at the end of a long day. “All thick and perfect, all over, even down here. It’s so fucking sexy, Shiro.”

“Keith,” Shiro breathes out again. Both of his hands find their home in Keith’s hair, tangling his fingers in the long strands. There’s nothing better than hearing Keith tell him what he likes about him—Keith says  _I love you_  generously and freely, shows Shiro in so many ways just how much he feels for him. When it comes to picking up on Keith’s enjoyment of something, though, Shiro is usually treated to moans and hums and happy little noises in reward for him to interpret, rather than Keith spelling it out in plain words.

Keith continues his journey, kissing lower and lower, carefully pressing gentle touches of his lips at the hair around Shiro’s cock, where he’s still sensitive and spent. It hasn’t even been fifteen minutes since Shiro came inside Keith’s body, and already he’s desperately wishing that he could get hard again—wanting to feel the heat from having Keith’s perfect lips wrapped around him, while guiding Keith’s head up and down as Shiro lazily fucks that lovely mouth of his.

“ _Keith_.” Shiro bites his bottom lip when Keith mouths over his balls, and spreads his legs to make better room for Keith down there.

He feels the smile on Keith’s face against his own skin, and then Keith’s hands smooth their way down from Shiro’s hips, down his thighs, scratching the fine hair above Shiro’s knees. One hand clasps the muscle of Shiro’s right thigh while the other moves to his left calf. Stroking up and down it, Keith’s fingers slide through the hair on Shiro’s leg where it’s coarser and thicker, the small strands just long enough to gently curl, and Shiro sighs.

Keith hums again, and kisses the inside of Shiro's thigh. His hand moves up the back of it, to rest his palm at the top of Shiro’s leg. Smoothing a thumb over the soft hair at the start of Shiro's ass, Keith whispers, “You know... I thought it’d be kinda gross.”

“Hm?” Shiro peeks down at him, curious. He’s been too lost in the feeling of the sweet attention that he's been getting to really follow what Keith’s talking about.

“Just—bodies. Sex. The whole thing.” Keith stretches as he gets up again, and then his hands follow their own path in reverse as he moves them back across Shiro's skin. Up his thighs, his waist, over his pecs, until Keith plants his palms on the mattress next to Shiro’s face to hover above him. Squinting his eyes down at him, Keith looks thoughtful for a moment. “Being naked together,” he finally says. “It’s such a weird concept. All—sticky and gross and the... the fucking  _fluids_ , and all that touching, and—I don’t know. Everything about it. I didn’t think it was for me.”

“I'd love you either way,” Shiro says earnestly as he wraps his arms around Keith’s waist.

He loves sex, true.

Loves fucking and touching and kissing, and  _god_ , Shiro loves getting to have this with Keith, but most of all, he loves _Keith_.

Shiro loves Keith, and he loves what Keith likes, so they would have made it work. He knows it, even though he has no words for how happy he is that Keith does want to do this with him, and how Shiro is the one Keith likes to do this with.

Smiling wide, Shiro thinks of love, and of Keith’s mouth mapping out the skin of his body. Of Keith letting him—begging Shiro to—come down his throat while Keith’s sucking him off, or when Shiro’s been fucking him from behind and then pulls out to come all over Keith’s ass and back, marking him up with his release while Keith moans for it. Or, like tonight, when Keith holds him close and cries out when Shiro empties deep inside him, Keith’s legs around him desperately trying to pull Shiro in even deeper, like there’s nothing Keith wants more than to feel just what he does to Shiro and his body.

Shiro thinks of Keith trusting him, of asking Shiro to touch him,  _please,_  because Shiro’s hands on Keith’s body and the sensory stimulation that comes with sweat while having sex and sticky lube and the mess after they’ve both come, and sharing wet and messy kisses together, is something good for him.

Shiro loves what Keith likes, and the sentiment does go both ways. Shiro trusts Keith with his life, with his body and heart and all that he is, and he's not alone in doing that.

As if they really were made for each other. All the way down to this—like some crazy sexually compatible match-made-in-heaven, but for true love.

“I’ll always love you,” Shiro says and smiles up at him softly. “No matter what.”

“Yeah?” Keith asks, but he doesn’t sound unsure. Mostly amused, and maybe touched by Shiro’s sincerity.

It’s not like they haven’t talked about it before. Shiro’s well aware of how he has always been able to touch Keith even in the most casual of ways that Keith would have jerked away from if others had tried it. The trust from that makes something lodged deep in Shiro’s chest glow, like a small ball of warmth spreading its way through his heart, over being so special to someone so special.

He tugs a little on Keith’s hips until he settles gently on top of Shiro, soft and sated body of his pressed along the length of Shiro’s own.

“I’ll always love you, whether you want this or not,” Shiro says and strokes his knuckles across the curve of Keith’s jaw, before he thumbs below Keith’s bottom lip. While Shiro hopes that they never have to stop doing this, the sex part of being with Keith is still all just a happy bonus in the grand scheme of  _Keith_. He would never want Keith to do anything that he wasn’t comfortable with, anyway. Shiro says again, firmly, “I’ll always love you.”

Keith’s quiet for a moment, his gaze somewhere on a spot between Shiro’s collarbones. Shiro takes the time to crane his neck up and press a kiss to the side of Keith’s nose, while he closes his eyes and rests his breath there.

“It’s not gross,” Keith says quietly, like a confession.

He lifts his head as Shiro pulls back; lifts his hands to sink them into Shiro’s hair, twisting his fingers in Shiro’s bangs. Keith’s thumbs go back to smoothing over Shiro’s eyebrows while he watches the movement of his own fingers wide-eyed, as if stunned that the universe could create something like the shape of those brows and put them on Shiro’s face. Keith always has a way of looking at him like he's seeing Shiro for the first time, and every time, the sight is a small shock to his system.

Shiro’s own throat goes dry as he watches him, and he swallows thickly when Keith says, “Nothing’s ever gross when it’s with you, Shiro.”

Keith flicks his eyes back up to his, and _this_ , Shiro thinks, hopeless heart of his squeezed by the way the exact shade of Keith’s eyes is impossible to pin down, no matter how long Shiro studies them—this really _is_ what the love that he never knew that he could have was always meant to be like.

Lifting his hand to cup Keith’s cheek, Shiro kisses him, lovingly and slow and for a long time, pouring his soul into showing just how much it means to hear Keith say these things. Then Shiro pulls back, and murmurs, “Yeah, well. Just you wait until we start living together and one of us starts using the toilet without closing the bathroom door. See how you feel about it then.”

A beat of silence passes.

Keith blinks.

Then he sputters, “ _Shiro_ ,” eyes ice cold when he glares down at him, Keith’s body tensed up like he wants to smack him for ruining the moment. But Shiro knows him, and he knows that the way Keith’s lips press together tightly means he’s fighting so hard not to smile. Shiro lets his own laughter free at the sight, and flops his head back onto the pillow—giggling there for a moment before surging back up to kiss Keith again, harder this time.

“Nothing’s ever gross when it’s with you, baby,” Shiro repeats right back against Keith’s lips. The words are mumbled between their kisses, but no less a promise and reassurance.

“Maybe I changed my mind and literally everything about you is gross,” Keith mutters and shakes his head, toes scratching at one of Shiro’s calves. Hands still in the tuft of Shiro’s bangs, Keith tugs at them to press Shiro further back into the mattress as he leans down to capture his lips. There he mumbles with a poorly-hidden grin, “What the hell is  _wrong_  with you?”

“I love you,” Shiro says. Which isn’t an answer to the question—because where would he even start—but Keith still accepts it with a pleased little hum, like maybe Shiro’s back to not being so gross after all, and this really is what true love was always meant to be about.

Laughing and kissing, sharing moments of honesty, loving each other in all the ways that make sense for the two of them. Being able to envision your future, bright and alive and including the full scope of what you used to cut yourself off from believing that you could have. Finding your best friend and allowing yourself to be really,  _really_  dumb with him.

“I love you, too,” Keith whispers so easily before he sighs—like he really does mean it, but he’s also sort of resigned himself to his fate. Shiro wraps him up tightly in his arms andtucks his nose against Keith’s neck to breathe him in with another smile.

Maybe he will never be able to understand his feelings for Keith fully, but in the end, this is all Shiro will ever need.

In the end, this is what their love will always be about.


End file.
